Jose Mourinho unquestionably has good options for the attacking midfield department. At his disposal are talented young players such as Eden Hazard, Oscar, Willian, Andre Schuerrle and new arrival, Mohammed Salah. These are the players he can pick to fill the attacking 3 in 4-2-3-1 formation that he prefers to use. With this quality of attacking midfielders, Chelsea have one of the better attacking midfields in the Premier League.
Prior to our match against West Ham, Chelsea were two points off of the league leaders, Arsenal, who drew against Southampton, Chelsea couldn’t take the advantage as West Ham United kept a clean sheet at Stamford Bridge and held Chelsea to a 0-0 draw. As a result, Manchester City, who defeated Tottenham Hotspur on the same day, topped the league, 2 points clear of Arsenal and 3 points clear of Chelsea.
Chelsea’s lack of finishing and creativity costed Mourinho's men the three points. Even though they dominated the match with 72% possession, Chelsea couldn’t score a goal against West Ham's solid defence and their man of the match, Adrian. Even though the game being so one-sided, Chelsea didn’t create enough clear-cut chances to make anything count, despite having 39 shots, of which only 9 were on target while 14 shots were blocked. In fact, most of the chances were tame crosses or cut-backs from Hazard and Willian, who were supported by the full backs and idle teammates in the 16 yard box, which was filled with West Ham players. This made it very hard for Chelsea to create a clear-cut chance, the focus was mostly on Hazard and his teammates couldn't pick out the key passes or shots when they were picked out at the top of the box.
Chelsea only completed 8 of 34 crosses
Despite dominating the game, Chelsea only put a trough ball in 90 minutes.
Chelsea kept crossing and putting the ball towards the penalty box for about 70 minutes, and became frustrated by West Ham's solid defence. Jose Mourinho even pulled Azpilicueta off for Ba, changing to a 3-5-2 formation to force the winner, but it didn’t change much despite Chelsea raising the tempo and thus, the score line stood at 0-0 until the referee blew up the final whistle.
More than half shots of Chelsea were from outside the 16 yards box.
It wasn't only against West Ham that Chelsea looked to Eden Hazard to create the chances, who has created 60 chances this season (most in Premier League thus far). Even though Eden Hazard is a winger, Chelsea rely on the Belgian International to create chances and score goals. When you compare Hazard's role at Chelsea to that of other #10s at Manchester City and Arsenal, you see an equal distribution of chances created by City and Arsenal, but a dependence on Hazard to do it for Chelsea.
Hazard is the only decent creator for Chelsea this season.
Title rivals chances creators
Oscar Dos Santos, who plays the #10 role for Chelsea, hasn’t created enough chances, considering he kept Juan Mata, one of the best creative midfielders in Premier League in last 2 seasons, on the bench. This resulting in Mata leaving Chelsea for Manchester United last week.
It can be argued that Oscar is more of a #8 player than a #10 player because Oscar tracks the field well and covers the defensive midfielder spot when the DMF runs forward to support the attack, but he lacks the creativity and vision to play the key passes.
Oscar were everywhere in game against West Ham
In the game against Stoke City, despite scoring the only goal trough brilliant costless-kick, Oscar only created 2 key passes in 80 minutes. Hazard created most chances for the London side as per usual.
Despite scoring the winner, Oscar only created 2 chances.
This is not to say that Oscar is a bad player, but Chelsea need more creativity and vision from the midfield that Oscar cannot quite provide. Chelsea are becoming predictable and it can be seen in every game, Hazard gets marked by two or three players by the opposition. When that happens, Chelsea rely on Oscar and Willian (or Schuerrle) to make the ways for strikers to score, since Chelsea don’t have that type of deep lying playmaker player. Oscar’s style of play pushes Chelsea to play out wide week and week out. This results in lack of through balls from the middle of the pitch, too many cut insides from the flanks, makes Chelsea play with too many men behind the ball.
Jose Mourinho picks Oscar as his #10 due to his defensive contribution and ball retention. Now. Chelsea have Nemanja Matic to retain the possession, Chelsea could need more creative #10 players as an alternative when Oscar is underperforming and to give Oscar a competition for the role. Chelsea have recently been linked to Bayern Munich’s Toni Kroos. who is a good shout as he has creates 1.6 chances every game. Also, there are the youngsters Lucas Piazon and Eden Hazard’s young sibling, Thorgan Hazard. Both of them can also be the solution for the next season, as these two youngsters have been performing very well while on loan.
Oscar completed key passes - West Ham. Only one of them was forward.
Eto’o made a good run, but Oscar failed to put a pass, ended up passing it backwards to Hazard who shot it straight to the goalie.
Chelsea still have a big chance to win the league, as they are only 3 points off the top of the league, Manchester City, and will play them this Monday. That will be a huge test for Chelsea midfielders to face strong defensive-minded players including Fernandinho, Vincent Kompany, Pablo Zabaleta, etc.
Guest article written by @rabonerkick, Gerry Crissandy.
